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On maps with a narrow expansion you can spine crawler it up. No biggie.
On maps with a wide expansion, its very easy for him to bypass the crawlers.
Do people still spine up on maps like Xel'naga Caverns? Go to lings? Lings + roach?
Generally I've made the mistake a bit of going to lair; you can't make use of it on the initial push. +1 lings seems viable as long as you are perfect on your macro and don't lose your queens.
On July 02 2011 05:31 Xanbatou wrote: I've been having a lot of trouble lately against terrans that open helion. What exactly is the proper response to helion? I've always been very unsure of what to do because the terran can do many things at this point. I'm never sure if the terran is doing:
1. Teching to banshees
2. Blue-flame
3. Stopping production after a few helions
4. going mass helions then switching to mass marauder production.
If it's 1, I absolutely need queens or spore crawlers, because mutas wont be up in time.
if it's 2, I absolutely need roaches as the main unit in my army. Zerglings die too fast to blue flame helions.
If it's 3, I don't have to get roaches because speedlings can handle them juts fine.
If it's 4, I'm not sure what to do.
How do I properly respond to helions, given there are so many things the terran can do after?
I struggle against 4 as well, hellions into mass marauder seems deadlier to me than a seige tank timing push. The only thing I can think of is getting mutas up in time to deal with it by getting an earlier lair, or using a spine ling defence.
Edit: So I was just laddering and I ended up vsing a random opponent on Shakuras Plateau. I sent a scout at 9, just to be sure of my build and scout out any cheese. And sure enough, I see him laying down two gateways at his front door (yea he was protoss). So I had gone 14 14, and as soon as my pool finished i layed down my RW, skipping zergling speed in the process just to be safe, and I ended up keeping drones on gas. I made 3 roaches, which arrived before his push, and then 4 more followed. I held off his 4 zealots using my roaches and my queen, and then layed down my expo (he retreated after seeing my roaches). So at this point I sent my overlord into his base to scout his transition, and saw him lay down a forge (so I knew he was expanding). So I opted to go for a 2 base all in. So I carried out the two base all in with my intial roaches and some speedling support, he had two cannons near his choke at his natural, and a few units, yet he held it off. I stubbornly kept trying this again, but eventually he got an immortal out and countered, thereby killing me off. So my question is should I have countered earlier? Or just outmacroed and taken my third?
It's much better to just drone up, after you see him throwing up the forge, most likely he would be preparing for a counter attack. It's ok to counter-attack but you have to make sure you can finish him off or get rid most of his workers. Afterall, you dropped an expo, no reason not to make drones and get your econ up and let him waste his resources in cannons.
Okay continuing on this point. I just vsed a toss who 3 gated me, and then went into forge and then expo'd. I held it off barely he had like 10 zealots vs my 4 lings and like 3 roaches, but i had walled off my base with one evo a spine a RW and SP, after cancelling my hatch so it wouldnt die. So I knew I was gonna be screwed anyways economically, I had sacrificed so many drones, so I went to counter but by that time he already had WG tech and a cannon at his front and his 10 zealots one sentry and 3 stalkers + reinforcements decimated my 10 roaches (with +1) and spling support. So how do i counter this cheese?
On July 03 2011 07:11 therealmcgee wrote: im trying to switch to zerg from protos so i kinda know most of their builds, but i mainly struggle dealing with a stalker collosi army any tips?
Use infestors. Fungal and np are strong against stalker colossus Armies. I personally go ling infestors but other people utilize roaches as well as bane drops effectively with infestors
On June 30 2011 15:31 TheGreenMachine wrote: 1. Gas before rax hellions, 1 or no marines, fast factory+reactor.
2. gas after rax hellions, 2-4 marines, fast-ish factory+reactor
3. wallin at front into preigniter hellions, 2 factory 1 techlab 1 reactor
PS: I prefer doing a roach-bling-speedling style on 2 base until 3rd base, then 3 base muta. Also I open up 14 hatch 15 pool.
Assuming hatch first I'd recommend
1. No roaches, your roach warren will never be up in time. Slow lings on top of your ramp and 2 spines at nat (1 in range of ramp, 1 to cover the rest of your nat), or 1 spine on easily defendable maps (shakuras). If they only build 2 hellions you're at a disadvantage cause you overcommitted, such is life :/ . If they build 4-6 and you only have 1 spine and speedlings it can be iffy. I like to break my lings into 2 control groups so they all don't chase at once.
You can have roaches right about when the hellions hit your base with 15 hatch, and given the amount of resources he's pouring into hellions, you're going to do a ton of damage (if not outright win) with your roach pressure while you safely saturate 2 base and take a third (assuming he expands)
Sorry, all I know is what I've seen koreans do for roach play. The replays I've seen all have Losira getting his warren around 6:30 or so, which is what I was thinking of. You are right that if you drop a fast roach warren you will get roaches out much sooner, but I consider this to be a huge investment and if he has bunkers I think you'll be behind. Just my 2 cents, I play a pretty passive zerg.
On July 02 2011 05:31 Xanbatou wrote: I've been having a lot of trouble lately against terrans that open helion. What exactly is the proper response to helion? I've always been very unsure of what to do because the terran can do many things at this point. I'm never sure if the terran is doing:
1. Teching to banshees
2. Blue-flame
3. Stopping production after a few helions
4. going mass helions then switching to mass marauder production.
If it's 1, I absolutely need queens or spore crawlers, because mutas wont be up in time.
if it's 2, I absolutely need roaches as the main unit in my army. Zerglings die too fast to blue flame helions.
If it's 3, I don't have to get roaches because speedlings can handle them juts fine.
If it's 4, I'm not sure what to do.
How do I properly respond to helions, given there are so many things the terran can do after?
I struggle against 4 as well, hellions into mass marauder seems deadlier to me than a seige tank timing push. The only thing I can think of is getting mutas up in time to deal with it by getting an earlier lair, or using a spine ling defence.
Edit: So I was just laddering and I ended up vsing a random opponent on Shakuras Plateau. I sent a scout at 9, just to be sure of my build and scout out any cheese. And sure enough, I see him laying down two gateways at his front door (yea he was protoss). So I had gone 14 14, and as soon as my pool finished i layed down my RW, skipping zergling speed in the process just to be safe, and I ended up keeping drones on gas. I made 3 roaches, which arrived before his push, and then 4 more followed. I held off his 4 zealots using my roaches and my queen, and then layed down my expo (he retreated after seeing my roaches). So at this point I sent my overlord into his base to scout his transition, and saw him lay down a forge (so I knew he was expanding). So I opted to go for a 2 base all in. So I carried out the two base all in with my intial roaches and some speedling support, he had two cannons near his choke at his natural, and a few units, yet he held it off. I stubbornly kept trying this again, but eventually he got an immortal out and countered, thereby killing me off. So my question is should I have countered earlier? Or just outmacroed and taken my third?
It's much better to just drone up, after you see him throwing up the forge, most likely he would be preparing for a counter attack. It's ok to counter-attack but you have to make sure you can finish him off or get rid most of his workers. Afterall, you dropped an expo, no reason not to make drones and get your econ up and let him waste his resources in cannons.
I wouldn't pull out until he gets a cannon up, but once that happens, pull out. By being in his face you'll force extra cannons and units. Don't build more units than you need to be in his face (I don't know what "feels right" at that kind of timing. I imagine 5-6 roaches is enough to kill zealots more or less as they spawn while not spending too much?)
Drone up hard behind that, take a third asap. Really early thirds (like, <6 minutes? I think.) are great against protoss cannon-FEs. If it's not early enough, you risk the third not being finished in time for a possible stargate to be done, which could cause you to lose the third due to not having any creep there (for starting a spore or allowing queens to move aorund the hatchery.)
On July 03 2011 07:11 therealmcgee wrote: im trying to switch to zerg from protos so i kinda know most of their builds, but i mainly struggle dealing with a stalker collosi army any tips?
Use infestors. Fungal and np are strong against stalker colossus Armies. I personally go ling infestors but other people utilize roaches as well as bane drops effectively with infestors
I dunno, I find infestors really unforgiving to use against colossus armies. (so much range on the colossi) Roach corruptor or some flavor of baneling dropping. If you could trade armies in the midgame before he gets a lot of colossi (just speed roach can be effective for this) then it's likely that you can get broodlords out - as long as you can keep the stalkers off of your BL (don't get blunked!), you should be ok.
Okay I'm starting to face people that anticipate sacrificial OL scouting in ZvT.
I try to send in OLs around 30 supply, but he has 2 groups of ~2 marines along the two most likely OL scouting path along the edge of his base. Then he hides his tech in a corner. Sometimes it'll just be 1 marine, but that still allows him to move the other marine to my OL and kill it before my OL sees anything important.
With no scouting, I'm forced to just guess... and with 4-5 viable builds available to T... guessing does not end well.
What are your thoughts on the thing destiny's been using sometimes? The late 4gas in a row, make a shit ton of banelings (don't tech, no infesters, pure bane/zling, wait till the terran attacks and just roll him over?
On July 03 2011 15:08 Ravencruiser wrote: Okay I'm starting to face people that anticipate sacrificial OL scouting in ZvT.
I try to send in OLs around 30 supply, but he has 2 groups of ~2 marines along the two most likely OL scouting path along the edge of his base. Then he hides his tech in a corner. Sometimes it'll just be 1 marine, but that still allows him to move the other marine to my OL and kill it before my OL sees anything important.
With no scouting, I'm forced to just guess... and with 4-5 viable builds available to T... guessing does not end well.
I hate ZvT, playing blind is not fun.
In the cases where your OL doesn't scout anything, you have to make educated guesses. There's no way around it. Getting a drone scout in their base helps a lot. Use that to look at their gas timings. I like to steal their gas for as long as possible by making and canceling and remaking.
0 gas = 1 rax expand or 2(+)rax marine pressure. 1 gas = hellions and/or rax with addons/upgrades. 2 gas = tanks/blue flame hellions/banshees and other various starport/factory tech. Very rarely do I ever see a 1 base 2 gas bio centric build. I hate this the most since 2 gas gives them so many options that can cripple me if I'm not prepared
Aside from gas timings, the only other thing you can do is constantly poke up their ramp with a ling to scout their unit composition. Check to see if their rax is constantly producing or not. If not, it means they're focusing on factory or starport units. Keep a ling just out of vision of the buildings at their ramp so you can scout anything that comes down.
You may have to guess, but you can at least make it an educated one.
I dunno, I find infestors really unforgiving to use against colossus armies. (so much range on the colossi) Roach corruptor or some flavor of baneling dropping. If you could trade armies in the midgame before he gets a lot of colossi (just speed roach can be effective for this) then it's likely that you can get broodlords out - as long as you can keep the stalkers off of your BL (don't get blunked!), you should be ok.
Infestors are unforgiving in the sense that they have a much higher skill ceiling then pretty much every other Zerg unit. It's much easier to spam roaches than to use infestors at a high level. Especially if you havent much experience with them. There will be a lot of shitty losses but once you are good with them its very rewarding. infestors are good against every Protoss composition.
On June 30 2011 15:31 TheGreenMachine wrote: 1. Gas before rax hellions, 1 or no marines, fast factory+reactor.
2. gas after rax hellions, 2-4 marines, fast-ish factory+reactor
3. wallin at front into preigniter hellions, 2 factory 1 techlab 1 reactor
PS: I prefer doing a roach-bling-speedling style on 2 base until 3rd base, then 3 base muta. Also I open up 14 hatch 15 pool.
Assuming hatch first I'd recommend
1. No roaches, your roach warren will never be up in time. Slow lings on top of your ramp and 2 spines at nat (1 in range of ramp, 1 to cover the rest of your nat), or 1 spine on easily defendable maps (shakuras). If they only build 2 hellions you're at a disadvantage cause you overcommitted, such is life :/ . If they build 4-6 and you only have 1 spine and speedlings it can be iffy. I like to break my lings into 2 control groups so they all don't chase at once.
You can have roaches right about when the hellions hit your base with 15 hatch, and given the amount of resources he's pouring into hellions, you're going to do a ton of damage (if not outright win) with your roach pressure while you safely saturate 2 base and take a third (assuming he expands)
Sorry, all I know is what I've seen koreans do for roach play. The replays I've seen all have Losira getting his warren around 6:30 or so, which is what I was thinking of. You are right that if you drop a fast roach warren you will get roaches out much sooner, but I consider this to be a huge investment and if he has bunkers I think you'll be behind. Just my 2 cents, I play a pretty passive zerg.
Well if he expo'd behind it I would suspect that the terran would be quite susceptible to a roach ling bling all in off of two bases (the earlier the expo the more effective the agression as if he expo's early he'll be stuck on bio for a while), unless you mistime the push and run into a wall of tanks (which could happen if he takes an expo after he attacks with the hellions, but I think the timing of the push should hit a bit before)
On July 03 2011 15:08 Ravencruiser wrote: Okay I'm starting to face people that anticipate sacrificial OL scouting in ZvT.
I try to send in OLs around 30 supply, but he has 2 groups of ~2 marines along the two most likely OL scouting path along the edge of his base. Then he hides his tech in a corner. Sometimes it'll just be 1 marine, but that still allows him to move the other marine to my OL and kill it before my OL sees anything important.
With no scouting, I'm forced to just guess... and with 4-5 viable builds available to T... guessing does not end well.
I hate ZvT, playing blind is not fun.
In the cases where your OL doesn't scout anything, you have to make educated guesses. There's no way around it. Getting a drone scout in their base helps a lot. Use that to look at their gas timings. I like to steal their gas for as long as possible by making and canceling and remaking.
0 gas = 1 rax expand or 2(+)rax marine pressure. 1 gas = hellions and/or rax with addons/upgrades. 2 gas = tanks/blue flame hellions/banshees and other various starport/factory tech. Very rarely do I ever see a 1 base 2 gas bio centric build. I hate this the most since 2 gas gives them so many options that can cripple me if I'm not prepared
Aside from gas timings, the only other thing you can do is constantly poke up their ramp with a ling to scout their unit composition. Check to see if their rax is constantly producing or not. If not, it means they're focusing on factory or starport units. Keep a ling just out of vision of the buildings at their ramp so you can scout anything that comes down.
You may have to guess, but you can at least make it an educated one.
If you are having trouble making educated guesses about builds you should watch this Day9 daily, it helps to go over some basic thinking processes you should use while guessing. :D
When I'm around the time to get a third base (~9 minutes) and I see my opponent hasn't taken their natural yet or setting up for it, is it wrong for me to get scared and hold off on taking my third and instead put out more units first?
On July 03 2011 23:27 Emporio wrote: When I'm around the time to get a third base (~9 minutes) and I see my opponent hasn't taken their natural yet or setting up for it, is it wrong for me to get scared and hold off on taking my third and instead put out more units first?
There's really no need. If you're droning heavily (50+ drones), you're going to need a third production hatchery at around that time anyways, so if there's no easy third, yes, you could just make it in your main or natural (this is for the case that a Terran's been doing a lot of harass or something and decides to make a CC in his main before expanding). If you're light on drones because he's been applying pressure off of 1 base (30-40 drones), then you can delay that hatchery until you decide to drone up to 2base saturation because you shouldn't really be able to use all the larva anyways. It all depends on what he's been doing. HOWEVER, if he's just bad and hasn't done anything by 9 minutes (which is what I'm getting from the way the question is worded), you should have lair and be able to just scout him with an overseer or something (preferably scout him earlier than that - like right when your lair is done). You'll probably end up needing to hold some sort of allin, in which case obviously don't take that third base, make sure you have a baneling nest, and make spines + ling/bane/roach (banes are absolutely necessary) and spore + queen if he has VR/banshee.
So yeah, the possibilities are pretty much: Your opponent is bad (anyone who's not going 1base allin would have taken an expo by then - if he decides to take it that late, you're at a massive advantage no matter what you do): Make sure to defend his allin. If you see the expo go down for some odd reason, just drone back up as his expo is building. Your opponent has been harassing a lot: Take your third, keep droning. You might want to make a good number of speedlings (unless he's harassing with hellions or something) to delay his expo as long as possible, though, since he'll have a relatively weak army. Your opponent has been attacking a lot: He should've pretty much ran out of steam by this point, unless you weren't very good at defending the first attacks. Just keep defending until he runs out of steam and don't bother taking another hatchery because you shouldn't be able to afford it.
ZvZ is a huge problem for me, I'm not really sure how the progression goes, mainly from the early game which feels so volatile into the late game. For example I'm going 14/14 every map for safety. I always expand at 21 and go ling baneling. If i see roach then I'll keep the speedlings for map control and go into macro roaches. Is this a good game plan? I usually hold off early agression.
I'm also trying to go 15 hatch, however I'm confused on how to do it. I hear some guides say dont get speed and throw up a roach warren asap. I've also seen pros go speedling + banelings then get roaches later. I've also seen idra go just speedling on his stream without for sure knowing if banelings are coming. Does it vary from map to map? because if you go speedling vs 14/14 then your speed is going to be way later so how do you hold?
On July 03 2011 04:38 hoop1 wrote: How to beat mass thors + hellion?
roach baneling with good positioning?
Roach infestors. fungal the hellions to keep them in place. tank with roaches and mind control the thors. Some lings wouldn't hurt for surrounding purposes. also you should abuse the lack of mobility of the thors.